


The Book of Love (Has Music in It)

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [105]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cute Kids, Diary/Journal, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Sherlock is a besotted father, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, sherlock Holmes and children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock keeps scientific journals about Violet and Ford's physical health and development. He also keeps rather less scientific journals about their other milestones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of Love (Has Music in It)

**Author's Note:**

> It's been too long since I wrote in this universe. So here. Have some fluff.
> 
> The title comes from The Book of Love, a song by The Magnetic Fields,  here covered by Peter Gabriel

Sherlock has many journals in which he records data about the children.

In several of them are the records he kept of their bodily functions throughout their infancy. You might not know it from a date and timestamp, a list of foods ingested in the last 24 hours and further notes on colour, consistency, odour and, on one particularly unfortunate occasion, taste, but each page of those scientific journals is filled from edge to edge with love.

It’s more obvious in the two journals he keeps specifically for personal milestones. The notes are less scientific, but the love is no greater – only more obvious.

His adoration isn't expressed in saccharine adjectives or soggy prose; the diagrams are not surmounted with flowery flourishes. The snatches of song lyrics are perhaps more revealing, but Sherlock generally detests the lyrics he writes. They are so inadequate. The lines of musical notation are the closest he comes to pure sentiment, and he has turned some of those into pieces that he played to their muses to help them sleep in their cots and teeny beds and on the sofa and in their parents’ arms.

But the rest of the entries are, without a doubt, a declaration.

For example:

  * Violet actively smiled for the first time while I held her, after she stuck her foot in my mouth and I held it between my lips and shook it. John agrees it was not wind. Mrs Hudson is mistaken. Mrs Hudson is annoyed that Violet has not smiled at her yet.
  * Ford, when he is sleeping, sucks on his right fist. Mycroft confirms it was not a habit either of us demonstrated as infants, to his knowledge. Perhaps the habit comes from Sally, unless it is entirely his own.
  * Violet’s first cold. John fussed and tried to pretend he was not fussing. We stayed up all night with her and checked temperature, respiration and hydration every hour. She was sick on me and after that her fever reduced. (See Violet: Health Statistics; Vol. 1 for quarterly, half hourly and then hourly figures and analysis of the fluids). We sang her to sleep. **Note: Mycroft/Baskerville, vaccinations for common cold for infants. Progress?**
  * Ford actively smiled at me today while I sang The Elements Song (with updates; Lehrer would certainly approve). Mrs Hudson confirms it was not wind.
  * Violet is teething and will not sleep without the skull. I've had to send it home with her to Mary and Nirupa. I have assured them it does no harm when Violet sucks on the cranium, to either her or it.
  * John was so startled by the grass snake in the fridge not actually being dead that he crushed the plastic half pint milk bottle in his fist and showered himself in the contents. Ford shows an appreciation for slapstick even at ten months and giggled as though it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I'm inclined to agree.
  * Violet's tantrum about not having her stuffed toy koala was the first of its kind I've witnessed. I hope it will be the last. Now she is asleep, John is having a scotch. When his blood alcohol level is lower, I will have one too.
  * Ford sat up on his own in my presence. John not here to witness the event, however photographic evidence accepted as veracity of statement.
  * Violet self-fed entirety of breakfast, discounting the portion of ‘entirety’ that was thrown at the skull, Mrs Hudson and me.
  * Ford peed on me today when I was in the middle of changing him. Violet thought it so funny that she reminded me of it every ten minutes. She clearly does not remember the first time she peed on me, nor the last, nor the five times in between. She expressed disbelief when I reminded her. I showed her the entry in this journal. She can’t read yet, but assumed if I have written something down it must be so. She decided this was also funny.
  * Violet told me she loved me today. Actually, she told everyone at the station. Very loudly. I may have lost hearing in that ear permanently. She made me shout it back.
  * Violet tried to use my whole name today. She called me ‘Serlock’. I attempted to demonstrate the correct pronunciation as ‘Sh’. She said ‘Serlock’ again, but more quietly.
  * Three hours ago, Ford refused to go home with Mycroft until I picked him up for a goodbye hug. He grabbed fistfuls of my hair and put his mouth right on my ear and said “I love you Sherlock. Bye bye.” My ear and my hair are still sticky because of the jam sandwich he had just eaten. I will wash later. ~~~~  

  * _~~How does a zygote,~~  
~~Two fused sets of genes,~~  
~~Create a complete person~~  
~~someone new?~~  
~~This one’s ears and that one’s nose~~  
~~That one’s eyes and this one’s toes~~  
~~But her own thoughts and his own mind~~  
~~Replicated DNA, yet one of a kind?~~  
  
_Utter rubbish.__




End file.
